Category: Random

• The most linked UK weblogs as of May 2005, according to troubled diva… Interesting set of statistics which go to show (again) that links bear very little relationship to traffic

• The Application of Web-like Design to Data: Designing Data for Reuse Matt Biddulph’s paper at XTech talks about the work we did together on the PIPs project, and on identifiers and web services
• UpMyStreet Conversations – the project that I was brought into UpMyStreet to develop has won an honorary mention at the Ars Electronica Online Communities prize So give it up, if you will, for Stefan Magdalinski who came up with the idea and for Dorian McFarland and Dan Burzynski who made it with me..
• Rough scans of Jamie Hewlett’s comic adaptation of the Pulp classic, “Common People” As found by Darren, the most well-oiled and spring-loaded linkmachine in the memetosphere

• iPod Plug-In Sets Music Free “ml_iPod, allows iPod users to bypass iTunes and manage music collections in Winamp instead. The iPod is supposed to work with iTunes only. A new version of the software was released Monday.”
• Google’s plan to put university libraries online has come under fire from a range of organisations The commercial considerations aside (which are incredibly important) many of the complaints seem small-minded, especially those from France…
• Kitten War… May the cutest kitten win… Most of these cats look moth-eared and grouchy. My kitten was much cuter when I was a kid. Bah.
• Magazine Publishers of America look to the future with a dumb flash site that tries to establish why they’ll still be around in a hundred years Which I think is far from obvious. Also – like other people who’ve stumbled upon this site – I’m kind of stunned by how retro the future tech looks. I don’t think the general public has the slightest idea…
• Bubblegeneration talks about how Media 2.0 needs to get past the idea of building ‘strong barriers around their goods’ It references my recent comment on the New York Times, but actually I think it’s more interesting than it seems – does this apply to all media? TV? Radio? DVDs? Movies? Software? Games?
• Nokia have announced their 770 – “Internet Tablet” – for the home It has a page on Nokia’s site, but there’s nothing on it yet. It sounds really interesting though…
• Nokia 770 coverage from MobileBurn “It is the kind of device that you leave on the coffee table or on the night stand next to your bed. When you need to check your email or do a quick Internet search, you just power it on instantly (like a PDA) and have at it.”

Now Nick Denton and I really get on pretty well when we’re not talking about politics, but still I can’t resist having a little evil chuckle to myself at the news that he’s been pied in the face as part of some freaky New York Media turf war:

I’m delighted to see that he took it in his stride. You can read more about this whole debacle on the Drudge Report (‘GAWKER’ PIE LIES AT ‘RADAR’ PARTY), at Gothamist (A Great Moment in Blog History), on Gawker (The Radar Party: Cream Puff Pies Galore!) and on Mr Denton’s own site (Good messy fun). Soon to be a movie by Nick Denton, adapted from a book by Nick Denton. Pie In The Face Inc is part of the Nick Denton family of companies.

The only thing that I’m confused about is that the whole thing doesn’t seem to be part of The Contagious Media Showdown. That damn site’s been so omnipresent recently that I’ve started looking at prominent news stories about wars in far off lands and started to wonder if they’re all staged to win the $1000 Technorati ‘Most blog links’ prize. And if they’re not now, well how long until they are?

• A French commission doesn’t approve of the word ‘blog’ and wants to replace it with the more gallic ‘bloc-notes’ or ‘bloc’ for short… I don’t like the word ‘blog’ either. I liked weblog much more. I think Meg Hourihan experiences daily shame about the whole thing too. Oh those neologists, when will they learn?!

• Unions announce BBC strike dates “BBC staff are to strike for 24 hours on 23 May and 48 hours on 31 May and 1 June in a row over job cuts”
• I, Cringely on the Inflection Point – “So Apple takes over video and movies while Yahoo threatens with a low-priced music subscription service and Google threatens to take control of, well, everything.” Interesting article – but I wonder about Microsoft and Apple directly competing in the home entertainment appliance market. It still seems plausible to me that might happen.
• After Hours Drinks Company Will deliver booze to your door in London at any time between 11pm and 7am. For those of you who drink…
• Podcast support in next version of iTunes “He was slightly dismissive of populist podcasting, describing it as Wayne’s World for radio and celebrating the arrival of professional radio stations into the market…”
• Wormhole ‘no use’ for time travel (says the BBC) “For budding time travellers, the future (or should that be the past?) is starting to look bleak.”
• Resume normal service, says The Guardian “It is difficult not to have mixed feelings about today’s strike at the BBC”
• First I was B-list, but they realised their error pretty quickly when I told them dirty stories about Anil Dash I mean I won a bloody lifetime achievement award already. It’s only fair. Right? Right?
• Channel 4 documentary lifts lid on Labour PR machine “Undercover in New Labour, a documentary to be broadcast on Monday, includes footage shot by Jenny Kleeman, a reporter who volunteered to work on the party’s election campaign and ended up being drafted in to work at its national PR headquarters”

• Lecturer censored in Spanish University (UPV) for defending P2P networks This is a terrible story where someone talking about what is legal is forced out of his job by organisations putting pressure on the University. This is not an intellectually free environment. Terrible.
• 4815162342 – “Lost” Numbers Reference Guide A big page collating the incidence of the important numbers in the awesome TV series “Lost”
• Fossil of Ice Age Armadillo Found in Peru It’s huge and awesome! Size of a Volkswagen Beetle! I want one!
• The essential books a programmer or designer should have… Being banal for a moment, I’d really recommend the O’Reilly “Web Design in a Nutshell” as a back-up reference work for emergencies…
• I may have to get this carefully weighted blank keyboard for work if only so I can look unbelievably posey when touch-typing and to stop other people using my desk when I’m out…
• Locket is a custom iChat widget that shows you when your special someone is online It’s kind of neat. It’s kind of dumb. He’s charging for it, which seems a bit OTT. But he’s also distributing unsexy versions for free…
• NASA science uncovers texts of Trojan Wars, early Gospel More on the use of multispectral imaging to read the hoard of papyrus from Oxyrhynchus
• The Collier Classification System for Very Small Objects Lovely, lyrical, flavourful and fun categorisation system for tiny little things

Eurgh. I am so bored of following other people’s links to something on the New York Times and finding it all login-required and password-protected. I cannot be bothered any more. I. can. not. be. both. ered. So as of now I’m not going to link to them any more. And I’m not going to follow any link that goes to them. And I’m not going to engage in any debates they allegedly start behind their blanket of white. Can’t be arsed. Better things to do with my time. And before you start, I know all about this and I still don’t care.

• R2D2 made in Italy “A prototype of R2D2 has been built by researched at the MediaLab from the University of Pisa who wanted to build a … companion robot with a friendly interface.”
• A History of the Graphical User Interface It’s been everywhere, but I never linked to it. I can thoroughly recommend it if you haven’t read it yet though…
• A re-presentation of the Adobe Photoshop interface within 3-dimensional space It looks like a microwave that cooks software, but is also intriguing in that 3d metaphors appear to be taking a step forward in OSX and Longhorn…

• Newsmap – it’s not new, but it is classic and brilliantly executed and I see no reason why I shouldn’t link to it again… I wonder whether something like this could be done with BBC News feeds through the Backstage project, I wonder what the size could represent…
• Awesome interview with a guy who works at Gosh comics in Bloomsbury It’s the best comic shop in London, even though it’s far from the largest. It’s just classier than everywhere else…
• Awesome Daily Show clip featuring Harlan McCraney, Presidential Speechalist Gloriously entertaining, subtle, elegant piece about GW Bush…
• The film US TV networks dare not show The Power of Nightmares (remade as a film) is unlikely to be broadcast on American television because it questions the threat of terrorist attack
• Kerry Bailey voices the thoughts of a thousand dweebie early-thirty-somethings all around the world about Star Wars Episode III I want to see it now if it’s good. I want to have seen it already and be putting the whole thing behind me if it’s not…